Love is a force of nature.
Our Page To Screen series in June is headed to Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee’s heartbreaking American epic starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal.
The film is about Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, two young ranch hands whose chance summer tending sheep on Wyoming’s Brokeback Mountain sparks a lifelong, impossible romance. What begins as a brief encounter deep in the wilderness grows into a decades-spanning bond shaped by the harsh realities of the world around them.
With luminous cinematography capturing the staggering beauty of the American West, a mournful score by Gustavo Santaolalla, and deeply vulnerable performances from Ledger, Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, and Anne Hathaway, Brokeback Mountain remains a landmark of Queer Cinema.
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As groundbreaking now as it was when it was released 25 years ago, By Hook or by Crook is coming to The Frida Cinema with a brand new 4K restoration via our friends at Altered Innocence!
Shy, a handsome, gender-bending, small town dreamer with a nagging messiah complex, and Valentine, a deliriously expressive, wise-acre adoptee on a misguided search for her birth mother. The two freaky grifters join forces and learn the true meaning of “poise under pressure” in this visually stunning and wonderfully acted, anti-authoritarian tale of friendship, trust and redemption.
Provocatively exploring issues of queer representation, gender and trans identity in ways that contemporary LGBTQIA+ culture and cinema are still catching up with, By Hook or by Crook has created a powerful cultural impact that endures today. The film has been digitally restored in 4K by the Academy Film Archive and UCLA Film & Television Archive in conjunction with Frameline, Outfest, Steakhaus Productions, Inc., and the Sundance Institute.
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Before he created the music, he lived every bit of it.
Our Staff Pick for the month of June comes from Allyssa, one of our Box Office Managers! She has chosen the mythmaking rock Drama Purple Rain!
A victim of his own anger, the Kid is a Minneapolis musician on the rise with his band, the Revolution, escaping a tumultuous home life through music. While trying to avoid making the same mistakes as his truculent father, the Kid navigates the club scene and a rocky relationship with a captivating singer, Apollonia. But another musician, Morris, looks to steal the Kid’s spotlight…and his girl.
Purple Rain is a film powered by pure charisma and one of the greatest soundtracks ever recorded. Songs like “Let’s Go Crazy,” “When Doves Cry,” and the immortal title track were made to shake theater walls, and seeing Prince command the screen in all his magnetic brilliance is a reminder of just how singular a performer he was. Great pick, Allyssa!
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Neither Heaven nor Earth could keep them apart!
Our Art House for Families series concludes with Powell & Pressburger’s astonishing Technicolor fantasia A Matter of Life and Death!
After miraculously surviving a plane crash during World War II, British pilot Peter Carter finds himself caught between worlds when celestial authorities realize he was never meant to live. As heavenly forces attempt to correct the error, Peter fights for the right to remain on Earth alongside the woman he has fallen in love with.
Few filmmakers ever have possessed sheer cinematic imagination quite like Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Moving effortlessly between the everyday and the cosmic, A Matter of Life and Death excels at both dazzling visual invention and genuine emotional sweep. The film stands as one of the great achievements of postwar cinema, making it a perfect finale for a series dedicated to the wonder of experiencing movies together on the big screen.
Our Art House for Families series celebrates the magic of moviegoing across generations all summer long. From silent comedy and international classics to science fiction and fantasy adventures, the series invites longtime cinephiles and first-time art house audiences of all ages to discover some of cinema’s most enduring films together on the big screen. This event is sponsored in part by the City of Santa Ana.
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We’re keeping French with the next installment in our Art House for Families series as we present Jean Cocteau’s sublime adaptation of Mme. Leprince de Beaumont’s fairy-tale masterpiece: La Belle et la Bête!
Drawing from the classic French fable, the film follows Belle as she enters the mysterious castle of a cursed Beast whose world seems governed by living statues and other impossible acts of magic. You probably know the rest of the story, but you’ve never seen it told quite like this.
The spectacular visions of enchantment, desire, and death in Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et la Bête) have become timeless icons of cinematic wonder. It remains one of the great achievements of fantasy cinema, blending handmade visual effects and poetic imagination into something genuinely timeless.
This film will be presented in its original French language, with English subtitles.
Our Art House for Families series celebrates the magic of moviegoing across generations all summer long. From silent comedy and international classics to science fiction and fantasy adventures, the series invites longtime cinephiles and first-time art house audiences of all ages to discover some of cinema’s most enduring films together on the big screen. This event is sponsored in part by the City of Santa Ana.
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Jacques Demy’s transcendent musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is the next film in our Art House for Families series!
This simple romantic tragedy begins in 1957. Guy Foucher, a 20-year-old French auto mechanic, has fallen in love with 17-year-old Geneviève Emery, an employee in her widowed mother’s chic but financially embattled umbrella shop. On the evening before Guy is to leave for a two-year tour of combat in Algeria, he and Geneviève make love. She becomes pregnant and must choose between waiting for Guy’s return or accepting an offer of marriage from a wealthy diamond merchant.
Simultaneously intimate and visually overwhelming, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg remains one of the most beloved movie musicals ever made, influencing generations of filmmakers with its fusion of romantic melancholy and pure color-saturated movie magic. It’s a long-standing Frida Cinema favorite and an absolute-must for first timers on the big screen!
This film will be presented in its original French language, with English subtitles.
Our Art House for Families series celebrates the magic of moviegoing across generations all summer long. From silent comedy and international classics to science fiction and fantasy adventures, the series invites longtime cinephiles and first-time art house audiences of all ages to discover some of cinema’s most enduring films together on the big screen. This event is sponsored in part by the City of Santa Ana.
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Our Staff Pick for May 2026 comes courtesy of The Frida’s Director of Memberships & Exhibition Operations, Bobby, as he has chosen Lou Ye’s 2000 romantic drama Suzhou River!
Along the banks of the Suzhou River, which winds precariously through Shanghai, Marda (Jia Hongshen) falls in love with a dramatically beautiful young woman named Moudan (Zhou Xun). When he tries to kidnap her in order to demand ransom money from her rich father, she escapes him, jumping in to the river and disappearing forever. Marda serves a three-year jail sentence for his attempted crime. Upon his release, he meets a woman that looks exactly like Moudan, named MeiMei (also played by Zhou Xun).
An exciting, action-filled mystery suspense movie, Suzhou River shares many thematic and stylistic elements with Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, and demands to be seen on the big screen in this brand new 4K restoration via our friends at Strand Releasing.
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Laugh. Cry. Share the pants.
Our Page To Screen series is back to present a 20th anniversary screening of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants!
Four best friends (Tibby, Lena, Carmen & Bridget) buy a mysterious pair of pants that fits each of them, despite their differing sizes, and makes whoever wears them feel fabulous. When faced with the prospect of spending their first summer apart, the pals decide they’ll swap the pants so that each girl in turn can enjoy the magic.
Adapted from Ann Brashares’s bestselling novels, the film became a standout of mid-2000s teen cinema by centering female friendship as the main event instead of the subplot. Starring Blake Lively, America Ferrera, Amber Tamblyn, and Alexis Bledel, the story uses a simple magical premise to explore body image and growing up.
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Director Pete Ohs new relationship drama Erupcja is coming to The Frida Cinema, starring big screen icon Charli XCX!
While on vacation in Poland, Bethany (Charli) breaks away from a romantic itinerary planned by her doting boyfriend, Rob (Will Madden), fearing that a marriage proposal is imminent. Reuniting instead with an old friend, Nel, the two women rekindle a uniquely combustible chemistry over the course of a few days in a chaste but burning trust predicated on sapphic synchronicity and a mutual penchant for poetry.
After premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, Erupcja hits our screen on May 15th. Ohs co-wrote the script with all of the movie’s lead actors, lending the film to a very untraditional and exciting approach.
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The hills are alive…with one of the most beloved movie musicals of all time!
Experience the timeless magic of The Sound of Music, coming back to The Frida with some final encores!
Julie Andrews (Julie Andrews) stars as Maria, a spirited young novice sent to care for the seven children of the строг but widowed Captain von Trapp (Christopher Plummer). What begins as a challenge quickly blossoms into a story of music, love, and resilience, as Maria brings warmth and song back into a regimented household…just as the looming threat of war casts a shadow over their lives.
Directed by Robert Wise and featuring unforgettable songs by Rodgers and Hammerstein, The Sound of Music is a sweeping, heart-lifting celebration of courage and the power of finding your voice. From its breathtaking alpine vistas to its iconic melodies, it remains a cinematic treasure that continues to inspire audiences of all ages.
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